Jules Meline

Jules Meline (20 May 1838-21 December 1925) was Prime Minister of France from 29 April 1896 to 28 June 1898, succeeding Leon Bourgeois and preceding Henri Brisson.

Biography
Jules Meline was born in Remiremont, France on 20 May 1838, and he worked as a lawyer before being elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1872. During the 1880s, he became a spokesman for the protectionist movement, and he served as Agriculture Minister from 1883 to 1885 and as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1888 to 1889. During the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s, Meline led the faction of the Liberal Republican Union which was anti-Dreyfusard and anti-socialist, and he went on to serve as Prime Minister from 1896 to 1898. In 1903, he led his followers in joining the new conservative Republican Federation party, and he died in 1925 at the age of 87.